


A Piece of Cake

by Silberias



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Gen, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 04:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: Because with Jareth and Sarah, not everything is always as it seems.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Several one-shots or small shorts collected together.

Sarah never stopped wishing after her experience with the Labyrinth, with Jareth—however her wishes were chosen much more carefully now, because after-all, what's said is said. Jareth could no more take her power of wishing, her power over him, than he could keep her time for more than thirteen hours. He was mysterious and fey, despite his wry insistence that he was nothing of what she saw him. Every time he appeared, he appeared as she wanted him he would tenderly explain—that was her power over him, to wrap him in the trappings of her wishes.

He always took thirteen hours from her for her wishes, but those hours were never missed by anyone but herself because he would return her seemingly moments after he had taken her. He taught her to play chess, and she taught him songs from the Above. The years gently passed in this manner, Sarah with her head still trapped in dreams—according to her family, even Toby as he grew older teased her for it—and Jareth seemingly happy with their friendship.

But the Labyrinth is a place where not everything, and _everyone_ , is always as it seems


	2. Chapter 2

Sarah's husband had done it to them. He and Sarah used to read to their children, a son and daughter aged two and four, from her ancient and lovingly worn copy of _The Labyrinth_ , and in an argument he had used The Right Words against her as a way of degrading her sentimentality. They had been fighting a lot recently. But Sarah had never even thought that her husband might stumble across The Right Words somehow—as they weren't in the book, and she'd never spoken them since The Night.

One had to wish for The Right Words, and the goblins would give them to the wisher. Goblins did things like that, granting wishes.

_"I wish the goblins would take the three of you away. Right now."_

The familiar cackles, despite twenty years interim, interspersed with "The Lady, the Kingy's Lady!" And then the windows crashing open and in the confusion the Goblin King stood to his full, heeled height. _You cowered before me._ She knew that her time in the Labyrinth had been real, but had never spoken of it—there was no need, and Karen had already been giving her funny looks for her improved behavior after The Night. _And I was frightening_.

"Well, well, well Adam we meet once again—it would seem that _removing_ …problems…is much more your style than _fixing_ them. Now—do you choose to navi—"

"No. Take them, I don't want them—I want my dreams back."

"But once upon a time Sarah was your dream I recall," there was something hard in Jareth's voice, now coming from behind her head as he laid his hands on her shoulders.

"Not this! Not two screaming kids and no money! What happened to the traveling and the expensive dinners, the big house with just us?"

Sarah's world fell down around her right then. Not only had her husband just wished her and their children away, but she had been a token exchange for someone else that Adam had wished away. She swayed but Jareth caught her by moving one arm around her waist.

"What's said is said—you took your dreams, but failed to make them come true. The fault is yours, I'm afraid. Sarah may yet come back, but that is for her to decide I think," and with that she was gone—Underground.

"Nothing will ever hurt again, sweet Sarah."


	3. Chapter 3

Sarah's heart was torn in two by her life as it had turned out to be. She was married with two wonderful little children, and she was free to do whatever she wanted—there was time for her hobbies, and encouragement for her endeavors. Her children were intelligent, and her husband—despite his many obligations and duties—was attentive to both them and her.

But her husband was the Goblin King.

Jareth was unable to bring her to the Labyrinth for longer than thirteen hours, lest she begin to turn into a goblin. He was insistent that he was against this idea not for the fact that she would be a goblin—he had seen a future where she was one, and he assured her he was still very much in love with her as one—but that the thing that made her _Sarah_ to him would fade with the change. It was because of this great difficulty that their children were born in the Above, there was no assurance that Sarah's labor would last less than thirteen hours and Jareth felt the journey was too stressful to undertake mid-way through.

But children born in the Above, despite being the heirs of the Goblin King, were subject to the same rules as any other child born in the Above. Michael and Thomas were half…whatever Jareth was, but could never visit their father for more than half a day at a time.

They made the best of it, they had to really for there was no other option available to them. Jareth visited nightly for a few hours to tuck the boys in with bedtime stories, and to spend time with Sarah. She liked to joke that he was just like any other hardworking dad on a salaried job—absent for the most part, but not without remorse for the absence.

The boys were five when Jareth first told them the story of the glass spider. It was his way of saying goodbye to them, Sarah knew, for when the three of them aged past him and left him by the wayside. He was the glass spider, alone because of a selfish choice to have the woman he loved if only for a short time rather than endure an eternity with a substitute.

"Up until one century ago…"


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jareth recognizes and understands Sarah's selfishness, and he loves her for it. As her time in the Labyrinth wanes, he looks for ways to keep her with him. Always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a bit of backstory and my own personal assumptions of the Labyrinth: Jareth is, himself, a changeling and is the only creature of his kind in the Labyrinth. He is the Goblin King, but only because he was the goblin Goblin King's adopted son. For all the people who think that there ought to be a Seelie/Unseelie Court aspect, I've thrown you a bone that he's an elf but that's the end of it. I actually really hate stories which incorporate elves and wizards and etc, etc. So here is this.

Jareth's mother had never wanted him, she had always wanted a daughter. In fact, Jareth was not actually her son, but rather the stolen child of an elvish woman who had carelessly wished her son away—Jareth's father had offered an exchange of his infant daughter for the three year old boy, seeing a kind of magical potential in Jareth which he did not in his daughter.

The woman had chosen to adopt the little goblin girl in favor of her small blond son, and the Goblin King—barely a foot and a half taller than the boy—had wrapped the child into a relishing embrace before whisking back to the castle where his distraught wife searched for their daughter.

The memory of his parentage and the circumstances of it came to matter little to the Goblin King who delighted in every achievement of his son, rewarding him greatly when he excelled and sneaking him praises even when he failed—but it was a daily stand-off between the Goblin Queen and the little prince—who by 8 was taller than both of his parents—and she frequently spread mischief in the Labyrinth for the boy to get tangled in.

Jareth had learned to live with this, but it cemented a deep compassion for the wished-away children—empathy for their entire situation. Because Jareth's father was not often as entranced by the wish-aways as he had been with Jareth, and because of both his mothers—neither wanted him. When his mother died, refusing in her last days to see either Jareth (expectedly) or her husband (a bit of a surprise), his father had quickly followed.

Jareth, the little prince in nearly the entire kingdom's mind, was only _just_ not a teenager. He was a goblin in all but form and name—his elven name (as best could be pronounced by Undergrounders) being preserved by his spiteful mother who refused to rename him a proper goblin name (Like Hoggle, which meant 'faithful to the end' in goblin). And he was expected to become the Goblin King whilst mourning his parents—however flawed each of them had been, they had been his parents.

And so, much later in his life—and it, he realized was going to be a _long_ life, he was an elf after all, not a goblin—when he met Sarah Williams he couldn't help but love her. She didn't belong where she was, and she knew it—and she couldn't escape it. She had also wished so very _selfishly_ —most often he arrived at the homes of young mothers at the end of their ropes, they literally could not feed their child or allow it to live in the conditions of their home. After that he got the too-much-too-young mothers (or fathers, or whoever, one did not have to be the child's parent to wish them away after all) who wanted to return to the lives they had led before. And then there were the so very _selfish_ ones, like Sarah.

Really, he had mused as she pleaded, it had been a night of babysitting, and for a teenager who had so few other engagements it should have been a trifle…

And because Jareth appreciated that kind of selfishness, he couldn't help but love Sarah for it. Being in a place where everything fit but yourself, being asked to watch over something that was your duty, taking certain privileges for granted…She was lovely, and so he loved her. She was the same as he was, in a way. Their fathers had spoiled them, and their mothers didn't want them, and the responsibilities their parents asked of them were too much for their young worlds.

It had been many years since Jareth had felt as lost and overwhelmed as Sarah was, but the deep sting of responsibility at a young age—especially responsibilities he _knew_ were his despite everything—had twinged in him as he offered her the crystal (which she took it for granted, of course. Every time he produced one she could have asked for it and been done with the Labyrinth). He was selfish in that he didn't tell her that he could alleviate all of her "suffering" on a whim, because no one had offered him such a thing.

Her baby brother was as darling a boy as she was lovely—and Jareth wondered if he should just erase Sarah's memory of the Above and keep them both. He would have a woman to love, and a son to cherish—without having to barter for one as his father had. But Toby would have to go. _Toby_ was an even more foreign name than his own, and hearing Sarah constantly yelling it out in the Labyrinth—because he could hear her every word, but was content to let her play out her schemes—made him determined to rename the boy.

The blond baby would not face the same problems Jareth himself had so long ago, with a foreign name—although something vain in Jareth wanted to give the child his own name. Or something lovely in goblin, like Bleen which meant _kingly_ , or Kiffle which meant _loved_ —he couldn't really decide, and put it off. He would name the boy once he won him from Sarah truly.

 _Sarah_. Her concepts of time, and fairness were so very alien to him and he was quite sure the novelty would never wear off. Her assumptions of life, about the Labyrinth were so very colored by the world she had been raised in—her view of him as her villain when all he was trying to do was to give in to every one of her selfish whims. She was an answer to him, but also a problem.

He so desperately wanted to keep her, but he couldn't as she was—he would outlive her by centuries, and that tore at an already ragged hole in his heart. His parents had been far more like her, far more mortal, than he—he was a changeling child, a goblin in the body of an elf, and they had died while he had still been a youth. Sarah would in all likelihood follow their path, and he would be left alone.

As he looked at her steadily making her way through his Labyrinth, he hit upon a solution—it would be an experimental magic at best—if it failed she would go back to her life in the Above still hating her brother, still unruly and selfish. But if it _worked_ she would stay with him, she would be his and would never want for the Above again. So he went into the tiny room where he kept Eternity—where time stood still within those four walls, ceiling, and floor—and devised the spells to keep her with him, to keep her living.

Eventually after spending several weeks in Eternity, Jareth emerged—mere minutes after he had gone into the room—with a crystal in hand. It was the most perfect crystal he had ever woven, at least he hoped. An elf handling goblin magic—or an elf using elf-magic alongside goblin magic—was a tricky thing at best, and the spell had exploded in his face several times before he had managed to contain it within the sphere. There was no time to test it, to see if it would work, because only he could enter the room where he kept Eternity—well, where the Goblin King kept Eternity—and so he couldn't test the spell at his leisure.

But Jareth was certain it would work. So he paid a visit to Dwarf Hoggle, the Gate Gardener—how he hated that dwarf for the name his goblin parents had given him upon receiving him from Jareth—and delivered his lovely present, wrapped up in the most delicious fruit he could think of, with the rosiness of summer and the orange of warmth on the skin. With only a few words he ensured that his Labyrinth would prevent the dwarf from stealing any kisses belonging to him, as well as covering his work by having Sarah's trusted companion deliver it to her.

As he watched Hoggle shamble away towards where Sarah was calling, Jareth allowed himself to dance along to the song the Fireys were starting to sing. They would teach his Sarah a lesson about parties right before she was invited to one. His footsteps were merry as he twirled, kicking up magic at his heels, until he winked out of existence. The smile on his face lingered, however, for a long moment after the rest of him had disappeared.

The spell was merely something to trap her with, to keep her distracted while he worked the real magic on her, but it was also so much more. It would expose her assumptions about his Labyrinth, and show him the weaknesses she saw in it—and the spell combined with more of his magic would ensure that it never ended. His steps were jaunty as he picked up Toby—he really liked Kiffle more than Bleen, having thought about it for the weeks it had taken to figure out the spells—from the goblin he'd left the baby with. For the first time since acquiring the boy, he quieted in Jareth's arms which only made the king smile wider.

And then he heard Sarah's scream, after Hoggle's protests—hopefully he wouldn't need to reveal that the Bog of Stench's stench was curable with elf magic—and was glad of the quick precaution he'd taken against the dwarf. And against Sarah, but that was only because she didn't know better—and besides, she would have protested that it was _unfair._

As though a precious thing such as her, so young and human, would be able to understand the concept of _unfair_. If she had his life for a basis of comparison, she would judge her life a great deal fairer than his, he was sure.

The Escher room was the best place to get caught up in a dream, because Jareth found if he woke he invariably fell straight back to dreaming. Something about the patterns of the staircases and archways, how they represented dreams, those things made it ideal. Little Toby— _Kiffle_ —was safely suspended in a crystal, gently bobbing around the room. He wanted the boy near when he won.

The thing about getting into the dreams of others was to see their interpretations of their world, to see their base assumptions—and Jareth was very curious to see what Sarah thought of his Labyrinth, of what she perceived about it. Knowing was half the battle to getting her to understand his world, where she would be staying. If the spell worked, and of course it would work.

For a while he was content to let her dream on her own through the web he had devised, carefully stepping away from her, leaving a magical net in his wake—but always just out of her reach or gaze. It was lovely, watching her explore. It was heartbreaking to know she thought there were others like him in the Labyrinth, in the whole of the Underground.

But then it was time to let her catch him, and let her catch herself in his spell. It was going to be all so blissfully easy, he thought as he took her hand, wrapped a hand at her waist. She seemed to enjoy his singing, as her eyes fastened on his face as he spoke the magic. Jareth wasn't a fool, he knew that she would realize she was dreaming and try to escape—and he was going to use that against her. As painful as it was to allow herself to tug away from him, and to hear the sound of a shattered dream—terrible indeed, and why he avoided the Above as much as possible in recent centuries—he did it. Because Sarah would not be escaping.

Dwarf Hoggle had told her, as clearly as was possible in the Labyrinth—if you go into it, you'll never get back out again.

So as Sarah fell, disoriented and losing her memories, the magic Jareth had walked around her and spoken over her took charge—if she had fallen a bit faster she would have slipped through, but he knew the workings of his own world. There was a smile on his face as he opened his eyes in the Escher room—Kiffle was bouncing contentedly along a ceilingstair while snuggled, fast asleep inside of her own bubble was Sarah, still dressed in the gown she had dreamed.

Jareth picked himself up with a cocky little smile and a jig to his step and leapt away from his stairs up towards where the infant bobbed, popping the crystal bubble with ease and settling the child into his arms. He decided that they would remain in the Escher room for the rest of the 13 hours, until Sarah failed to take the boy from him—and to pass the time he would form and strengthen an enchantment on her and Kiffle to ensure that they would not gradually turn into goblins.

He had won himself a queen and an heir, all within a day. The jig was still in his step as he walked circles around Sarah, singing his spells over her once again.

It was simple really, taking into account that Sarah was a daydreamer, it would not be hard to shock something out of her—several things, actually—and capture her indefinitely in a dream of her own creation. Within that dream she could do anything—if she really put her mind to it she would even be able to fly—while outside of it she would sleep on. It was splitting her dreaming mind into several but still keeping it whole.

It meant that he caught Sarah in her entirety just before she fell out of her dream to wakefulness, still dressed in whatever she had clothed herself in—but made real—while part of her dreamt on. He had Sarah's physical form and all he had to do was keep that form asleep until her time limit had run out. There were still some issues to work out such as her (and Kiffle's) human lifespans, but a few weeks in the Eternity room tinkering with goblin ale would probably work wonders on that quibble.

Distantly the sounds of her two companions chittered in Jareth's ears, but he paid them no mind. Sarah would be returning to them soon enough, a dream shadow of herself. She was powerless so long as she could not actually wake—and as he walked and talked and soothed Kiffle, Jareth ensured that she would _not_. No matter what she did, even if she managed to confront him in her dream she would not win. At any rate, by now he was powerless to stop what had been begun—if he did not continue with the enchantment, and any which must follow it, Sarah would be trapped dreaming forever.

Of course that would be fine for her, she would never experience anything she didn't have the power to overcome—dreams were like that—but Jareth needed her to wake up at some point. He couldn't have a continually sleeping queen, it was unheard of…save for perhaps Queen Fidut who had slept for most of King Volby's reign, but no one in the Underground liked to talk about that particular set of rulers anyway.

He particularly wanted Sarah to be caught in what was usually called a waking-dream, what amounted to sleep walking and talking—and he planned on catching her dreaming-self when the girl reached the Escher room in her mind. Once he had her in that, he would present her to The Dwarf Hoggle—to whom Jareth would show great mercy in promoting him to Junkyarder, in an effort to clean up that abomidable place—as well as her other companions:

The little demon fox, wished away a thousand years ago and told by Jareth's father to guard what was then a valuable bridge, and that was centuries before the Bog of Stench began to emerge.

And then the creature which had been wished away only decades ago into Jareth's arms by an orangutan mother caught by poachers—the Labyrinth had sensed the mind of a young child and had magicked the baby just as it did any other, only it had miscalculated in how large it allowed the creature to grow.

Sarah knew their faces, and knew their voices—her dream would supply the rest. Probably summon up a party of some sort, where she pretended that she had won. Jareth loved these sorts of dreams, despite not being able to allow them to himself very often. Sarah would hopefully never know her true predicament, because Jareth would allow himself that one generosity towards her. He was, after all, just as selfish as she was.

The clock struck twelve, and still Sarah slept on peacefully. To amuse himself and to pass the time, Jareth gently sat her so that he could inspect her hair. It was black, and brown—and blue and green and a violent color of red he found as his fingers wound their way through her thick locks, threading magic behind them. The magic brought out and enhanced all of the colors which the human eye could not see. Magic would bring out a lot more of Sarah than probably even he could predict. It would all show through, however in time.

And he would need time, enough time to keep her forever. Because humans didn't live forever, they weakened and grayed and died. That would not happen to his Sarah. His fingers itched for an occupation, so he started to braid her long, magical hair. At a quarter to the thirteenth hour, Jareth hit upon how he would save her for himself. Steal her from her human fate. He would take a slice of eternity, he decided, and craft a necklace, a ring, and every bauble she might ever want out of it and wrap her fully in them. They would keep her from aging, and so long as she continued to dream, only half awake, she would never notice. She would never grow bored with how long her life extended, and Jareth was content with that. Sarah content in dreams, and Jareth content with Sarah.

With an errant wave, the bubble the little child was contained in drifted towards him. There was a merry bounce to it that made him smile as he looked at the red and white clothed infant. In ten minutes, Sarah would have lost the baby to him. And then she was his as well. He had failed to mention that unless she succeeded, she would have to find her _own_ way out of his Labyrinth. She probably assumed he would send her home as a reward for her victory.

But Sarah, he knew, dreamed of her victory, of her life, of her adventure. Tomorrow she would dream of being a princess, and the next she would dream of being an explorer, the day after a vivid adventure in the Outlands.

So he crooned a soft song, a lullaby, into her ear as the minutes ticked down to moments. A whimsical smile tinged his face and voice as Sarah's and Kiffle's time passed into eternity. They were his now, already gone from the minds of those Above who had known them. If Sarah ever asked who Kiffle had been, Jareth would tell her the truth—Kiffle was a wish-away, one who Sarah had fought very hard to keep. And if she ever asked where _she_ had come from, he would tell her the truth too: She had walked into his life out of a dream. He'd leave out the part that she walked right into her own dreams, that he'd trapped her here very much on purpose. His smile widened as his song slowed, eventually reaching a sweet silence. The little prince had been selfish, but he had won.

* * *

 

In the end, it's only forever.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The faun let the little princess escape to the Above, where she will most certainly die. Jareth will not let that happen, not forever at least, and sends the faun to the Above to wait for the return of the little princess, to bring her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Labyrinth/Pan's Labyrinth crossover. Because it needed to happen. Yes. *The way it works with the timeline and such is that the portal just threw her out into the Above willy-nilly, not the human year which she escaped. The reason Jareth can play with time in a human's mind is because the Underground doesn't obey human concepts of time. It could have been three days since Moanna escaped, to Sarah and Jareth, even though the faun has had to wait for all of eternity.

"Jareth, Jareth bring her back to me, bring my daughter back. I will not live, I ca—can't, I won't live without her!" Sarah was screaming, fighting and clawing in his arms, unconscious to his words of comfort. Their little daughter, Moanna, had escaped—run to the Above, run from the Labyrinth which was supposed to keep her safe, keep her entertained and obey her every whim save one. He had promised Sarah, _promised_ her, that there was no way a child could escape the Labyrinth directly to the Above—and of course, their daughter had found a way. Children, Jareth mused darkly, always found a way. He didn't know which was more painful to hear, the weeping of his wife as she gasped for breath amidst her tears, or the mournful apologies of the faun he'd assigned to guard the girl.

"You will wait at the gate she escaped from! You, _you_ took your eyes of my child for a moment—it takes a _goblin_ longer to escape notice than it does a child. Now she will _die_ —Do you understand me?" Jareth's voice was ragged from grief, breaking all over, the hoarse quality of his voice dreadful to hear. Sarah's sobs increased in volume, her long dark hair damp in tendrils following her tears, her hands shaking in front of her as she mimicked holding a child. "She will _die_ , be lost for all the ages to me, my only daughter—my only child! My _heir_ —You, you killed her, you killed her with your passing glance upon a fairy. They will be your curse, your constant companions, until she is found!"

The faun stuttered its apology before fleeing the throne room, the eyes of a hundred goblins on it's back.

* * *

He was thrown into the farthest reaches of time to wait at the entrance—for the entrance led not to the "present" but to the world. To the world which humans lived in, and lived by their sense of time. The little princess Moanna could have arrived ten minutes into the earth's creation, or she could have arrived thousands of years later. She could have arrived at any other gate, too, rather than the one he had been left at. He was not allowed to search her out, however, only to send the fairies out as far as he could, to listen to dreamers' hearts.

And the fairies—the fairies annoyed him to the point of madness, and more arrived every year. A few brought letters, instructions from the Goblin King and the Wishing Queen as to testing any children which he, the faun, thought to be the princess. The King and Queen wanted to be absolutely sure—they wanted their daughter back. In time the faun indeed fall to madness, and from madness to sanity, and from sanity to apathy, and from apathy to passion. But even that eventually was worn down by time, and rather than always stay awake to be driven mad ( _again)_ by the fairies, the faun curled up on himself inside the portal's entrance and went to sleep. The fairies would wake him if they ever led a human child into the Labyrinth's entrance, and until then, he had nothing to do that he hadn't already done. In dreams, he could play in the hedges of the Labyrinth as he had done as a youngling, and in dreams, he was _home_.

* * *

No—it couldn't be— _she_ couldn't be! The girl—with hair as dark as Queen Sarah's, and eyes the shape of the King's. Now, for the tests, the tests the tests the tests—! Oh but what would the King and Queen look like when he returned triumphant with their beloved daughter—but what, what was the first test? What had the letter said? The page had long disintegrated with age, first having turned yellow, then brown, then gray, until it faded to dust in his hands. It had been written in Queen Sarah's hand, an easy task for a brave child, to go to the toad—yes, the toad. The stones, the key, the book. The tree. The toad, the one killing the tree, the very toad he'd set there seventeen centuries before, in amongst the roots of the tree he'd planted a year after first arriving. The stones, the key, the book. Oh but if he could _see_ the King's face as the little princess, beautiful as though she were still fae, looked up at him. He was going to bring the child home, to the Underground, to the Labyrinth which she'd escaped so many eons ago—not long at all—and he was going to be _home._

The second test—the second had rid him of his fairies, save for one. He had grown to love them as much as he hated them over the centuries spent at the entrance to the Labyrinth. That missive had been from the King, and a scarier test he could not have devised—did the man even love his own daughter? Love, love like a father loves a child, love like he loved his fairies, or love like a cricket loves the night? And it was designed so that the right child, the right girl, the real princess if she were indeed the real princess, would fail it, would nearly lose her life—would find that fairytales could also bite, would learn that even in such tales there were grim realities, deserving of a healthy respect. The girl had killed his fairies, had watched them be eaten—not such a loss, as they'd long been dying away faster than they came. The thing had eaten them instead of the princess, and for that he was glad, glad to be rid of them.

The third test, task, quest was handed down from a small council of goblins along with the Goblin King and the Wishing Queen—sacrifice of the self rather than of an innocent, of the _most_ innocent. To Queen Sarah, no daughter of hers would ever put riches, dreams, comfort, and love, before the life of a newborn babe. And to the King, one could not rule a kingdom of outcasts without sacrificing everything—even one's own life. The faun understood this test, he understood sacrifice and outcasting and it had been eons since he'd seen a proper moonrise. And the girl, she was so scared, so willing, it scared him—could this possibly be the princess? Stealing away her infant brother to follow a faun? She couldn't be the princess, couldn't—and then she had said No. She'd said she would never hurt her baby brother, and then she'd died for him—a vain sacrifice. Sacrifice, in vain, sacrifice a lifetime, the length of time itself on earth, the faun struggled to contain his glee—he was _free_ and the little princess had learned her lesson, would never run from her family again, would never run from the Labyrinth again.

For she had experienced even death itself in the Above, and knew never to go back there. But he didn't know that, couldn't know that, until he carefully went through the swiftly closing doorway and run as fast as his ancient bones could carry him—quite fast, really, as though he'd spent no time at all in the harsh Above—to the throne room of the King.

* * *

To watch the little princess die had been one of the more painful moments of the faun's life—alongside the moment he had informed the frantic mother and father of the girl that the kingdom _had_ been searched. Twice. That their child had gone to the Above, to a world of cold, damp, and death. To never be seen again, never be touched or kissed or held again as any loved child should be.

To watch the little princess live again, however, was one of the more beautiful ones of his life. In her little red shoes—made specially for her by her father, at the drop of one of his crystals—and her little red gown, her dark hair twinkling with starlight, gazing up at her parents on their high thrones, watching her see the goblins as they truly were rather than what they were perceived to be. It was thrilling and beautiful, and the faun felt his madness quite relieved at the sight of his young charge standing yet again in the court of her father. If the Wishing Queen glared at him sometimes, this moment made it worth it. If the Goblin King threatened him with an eternity's immersion in the Bog of Stench, so be it—nothing would rob him of the sweet sound of her smile or the scent of her laughter.

Except—! A fairy—a dazzling little—


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three wishes, between Jareth and Sarah.

The First Wish

* * *

 

Sarah Williams made her first wish (since visiting the Labyrinth) on the eve of a particularly vicious final exam during her first year of college, and she needed time to study _as well as,_ write a paper—it was for a class she barely had the credit requirement for, and although fascinating, was tremendously stressful. It was a wish that most people would call wishful thinking but Sarah genuinely hoped her wish would be fulfilled.

"I wish that the Goblin King would re-order time so that I had enough time to finish this paper!"

One explosion of glittering magic that smelled like a basket full of spices later, and Sarah was negotiating with said Goblin King—about what she would need to give him in return. In the past three years Sarah had learned and practiced the exchanging of favors—I'll wash the dishes for you, Toby, if you rake the leaves for me—and had realized that the Goblin King was all about that sort of responsibility.

As well as standing up and admitting it when things were tough—honesty—which is why, she had figured out, she'd had the Cleaners sent after her.

"You'll call me by my name, Sarah, that's my wish."

"Is that all?" Sarah was shocked—she had thought that she would be giving up her first-born or something to him, but that was mostly because she had no idea what he would value her wish at. His odd blue eyes looked back at her, luminous in the afternoon sun streaming through the window—

"My… _wish_ …for that, in my mind is comparable to your desire to pass this class with flying colors. Both your want and my want have about the same weight, Precious—you will live and continue on if you don't get this wish, and I will get over it if I don't get mine." His eyes, despite his reassuring voice, said that what's said is said, and that he could ask for much more than this.

"Thank you, then, Jareth," Sarah said, mouth curving into a smile as she shook his hand.

* * *

 The Second Wish

* * *

Sarah made her second post-Labyrinth wish when a graduation party went sour a few years later. One of her friends was hosting it, so anything the drunkards broke while milling around the house wasn't hers to replace, but the problem was the drunkards—one of whom thought that she should come outside with him and his friend. The two men were getting more and more insistent with her, and Sarah was left with no wing-woman and no other options.

"I wish Jareth would make you leave me alone!"

He was far more subtle in appearing this time, but that was probably because she was around a lot of other people—he must have appeared somewhere else in the house, from a closet or something. But there he was, steadily making his way through the weaving crowd towards her with his eyes fixed on the two men who wanted her to accompany them.

The quieter friend had gone so far as to reach for her arm to drag her out when Jareth interposed himself between them. Sarah stood behind him, admiring the cut of the white shirt he wore while he dealt with her problem. She wouldn't have wished for his help if she thought she could deal with it alone—but her friend Denise had left early, and her other friend Liz was utterly wasted, and neither of them could back her up against these pushy men.

She wouldn't know, until even the day she died, what Jareth had done to them—but very suddenly his arm was snaked around her waist and her left hand was caught up by his, and they were heading out of the house. Sarah didn't have a car (Denise had a car, but she had ditched), but didn't bother worrying. Either Jareth would walk with her the entire way back to her apartment, or he would just magick them there—the latter of which he did, because he was uncomfortable with her spending so long a time out in the cold night.

As she got her bearings in her house (magicking about the place was damn useful, but also damn disorienting), Sarah pondered what Jareth would consider an equivalent to her wish.

"Jareth?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't you have a wish?" Sarah was genuinely curious—she wasn't anxious for him to leave her presence right now because she was still a little jittery, so she didn't want him to feel like she was chasing him off. As the only sober person she knew right now, Jareth was good company.

He laughed softly, looking at the carpet of the apartment with eyes that glittered happily at each coffee stain or scuff—the cause of his goblins no doubt, and probably something he knew a lot about then. When his eyes flicked up to hers the glitter dimmed slightly, but didn't vanish.

"It's not often that my wishes are granted, Sarah, this is a sincere oddity in my life. I…I believe that…I wish that I could sleep here in your home with you, my dear Sarah." Sarah initially smiled, it was a nice wish, but then lost that smile quickly as she realized he was going to be too tall for her couch. Before Jareth's expression could change a whit, however, she had a plan.

"Okay, you can have my bed and I'll take the cou—" a touch of a gloved Jareth-finger to her nose stopped her however. A gloved Jareth-hand settled on her shoulder and turned her about, and then two gloved Jareth-hands pushed her towards the bedroom. Jareth went around her and sat on the bed, tugging his boots off determinedly. Sarah stood in awe and alarm at what he was doing until he finished de-shoeing himself—after which he promptly made himself comfortable on one half of the bed.

"What _are_ you doing?"

"I'm going to go to sleep, right here, and you're going to go to sleep right here," he said, gesturing to where he was and where she was supposed to be, "and then my wish will be fulfilled. I will however promise to stay strictly on my side unless it's requested otherwise."

With a muttered sarcastic "typical," Sarah nodded and went to go brush her teeth. When she returned it almost looked as though Jareth hadn't even moved a muscle since she'd left—the only change being that his head was resting on the pillow. Sarah wondered how bad of a bed head he would have in the morning.

Only when she had settled into bed with the strange Jareth-shaped weight next to her did Jareth's voice come softly through the darkness.

"I know that I…that I promised you, Sarah…but could I hold you?" In response Sarah reached blindly into the darkness (which he could probably see perfectly through) and found his shoulder. He didn't exactly grab for her after that, but he did quickly wrap his arms around her. Sarah held back sleepy tears as she pitied him for falling in love with her when she had been too young to know what she had—to see through the tricks which he hid his nature in.

She didn't think to worry that as she set the bar higher for her next wish—whatever that may be—he would be setting his responding wish to a corresponding height.

* * *

 The Wish He Couldn't Quite Grant

* * *

Sarah's third wish was made the day that Toby was nearly killed in a car crash which killed their father and severely injured Karen. She was sitting in Karen's room, holding the unconscious woman's hand, and crying. After she had run the Labyrinth eight years before, Sarah had made an effort to understand the emotional politics concerning her mother and the woman her father had married—and had come away admiring Karen more out of the two of them.

Karen had the intimidating task of becoming a mother to a child who didn't want her—she had had to deal with Robert's early inability to connect with her for fear she was another Linda, and had had to endure the infighting between her new husband and his daughter.

Karen was a strong woman and for the past eight years, Linda hadn't been Sarah's mother—Karen had. And Sarah's beloved baby brother—even though he was a healthy nine years old now—had nearly been taken from both of them on the same day that Sarah's father had been.

Sarah hadn't emotionally connected with that last fact yet, she was too busy comforting her step-mother (when she was conscious) and worrying whether or not her brother would survive the night.

"I know that you can't wish the dead were living, but I do wish that Karen and Toby live through this night, even if I didn't get to see them ever again…" Sarah murmured as she stroked Karen's hand. When she felt the weight of another hand on her shoulder, Sarah leaned back into it, finding a certain Goblin King there to support her in the void.

"Sarah-mine, that is a very serious wish, with an even more serious clause. I cannot, however grant it," in the moment's pause in Jareth's words, Sarah barely stifled a sob—her Goblin King couldn't do the one thing that she most desperately wanted him to do—"I cannot grant it here. Will you allow me to take your brother and step-mother to the Castle-Beyond-the-Goblin-City?"

Sarah tilted her tear-streaked face up, looking at him upside down, and nodded her agreement to him. In the next instant the stark hospital lighting framing his face changed to a soft, natural lighting of sunlight streaming through open windows.

"Now, I must help the healers, Sarah." He took half a step backwards, away from her, before reconsidering—"Sarah, do you want me to make them forget your father?"

Sarah considered, and shook her head. "Forgetting him for the sake of peace over his death would do him an injustice—please let them remember him." Jareth made a move of acknowledgement and then quickly left the room he had taken them to.

Sarah was asleep when he returned, having succumbed to the traumatizing events of the day and giving in to exhaustion. She woke up when he picked her up from where she'd curled up on a wide windowsill, cradling her head against his shoulder. "They are resting now, but I am afraid you can't see them yet."

Still drowsy, Sarah stayed quiet—simply looking up to his face—wondering if he was going to speak about anything else. He didn't seem to be following up on the subject, walking at a light pace so as not to jostle her. Sarah felt like she was floating rather than being carried as Jareth calmly took them through a set of doors into a massive nave whose ceiling stretched upwards past even heaven—clerestory lighting, windows between the main roof and the roof of the aisles, allowed in a startling violet twilight intermixed with greens and blues of the coming night. The sway of Jareth's gait and the pad of his footsteps, combined with the soft lighting were pushing her initial drowsiness into at least a very heavy nap.

"Jareth?" her eyes, drooping to near shut, were fixed on the light. He hmmed his attention to her, not changing the rhythm of his step.

"The light—it's so…" she trailed off, her doze threatening to overcome her. Jareth chuckled before answering, "I will explain when you awake next. "

Sarah startled awake many hours later with cool, secure arms wrapped around her as a yellow morning streaked across the room. An open arched window, allowing the scent of recent rain to seep into the room, cut through the wall across the room. Someone's—Jareth's—breath huffed against her hair, the warmth of it momentarily heating her scalp. The heat of it spun, in eddying worls, across the rest of her face. The room was light, stone covered with a wash of warm cream, faint rose accents, and glints of silver, copper, and gold.

The walls lit up in an amazing cacophony of color—and Sarah tensed up as she realized what this was, and what the previous evening had been. _I'll paint you mornings of gold—and spin you Valentine evenings_. That beautiful dusk, the symphony of colors which soothed her heart, she knew what it was now. Her panic increased, and there was a sudden bid to escape his hold, as she recalled he'd never asked for his recompense for saving her family—what would he ask her to do or say?

"Sarah." She'd woken him up, with her sudden acquisition of sharp elbows and apprehensive shoulder-blades. " _Stay._ " Her breath hitched in a way which her eyes suspiciously regarded as a precursor to tears. Jareth apparently had the same thought, and an ungloved hand cupped her cheek as he resettled himself around her.

"This—you're going to make me stay aren't you?" _You, you're him. You're the Goblin King._ "I-in return for…" She trailed off when she realized he took no breath to affirm or deny. When she seemed finished with her panic, he did take a breath.

"Sarah, you know that I set my wishes on an equal level compared to yours—You might not think of it this way, but I must: your kingdom is as great, and I have no power over you. But neither do you have power over me. We are equals, Sarah." He paused, expecting something. Sarah couldn't read his expression because they still both reclined on the bed he'd curled them up on. The firmness of his arms around her, of his palm against her cheek, nothing tightened or loosened against her. The morning—made truly golden by the treatment of the room—still flooded in through the window.

"Okay…" It smelled less like fresh rain and more like the taste of apples—there must be a rose bush below the window.

"Let me preface this with the fact that you do not, under any circumstance, need to grant this to me now—just sometime in your lifetime and while you still can. You wished…for your family. And I wish for mine." His form behind her grew tense as he asked, he wished, in either anticipation of her attacking him somehow or with how much it cost him to say it so plainly.

Sarah relaxed against him in response, she was so relieved by his words—his uncanny knowledge of the inner workings of her mind, the ways to reassure and comfort her.

_Just fear me, love me, do as I say…and I—I will be your slave._ When said flippantly, that line was scary—when it was someone who would really do anything for their chosen love, well, the last words became simply _and vice-versa_. He feared her rejection, he loved her entirely, and he did as she said when she said it—and as dysfunctional as that sounded, it made perfect sense to reciprocate completely.

And as Toby had lain in the ICU, perhaps dying perhaps not, and Karen had awoke in dazed panics, as Sarah's world had fallen about her ears—Jareth had been there.

"That sounds just about _fair_ , Jareth," she murmured, snuggling into his hold as it tightened against her.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wishes and wants are different--Sarah learned that lesson the hard way 17 years ago when she lost her baby brother to Jareth, the Goblin King. She's gone 17 years without breaking her vow to never wish again, but a moment of weakness is all it takes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a plot bunny which ate my brain. It takes place after an indeterminate past. Sarah is 32/33, married, and 17 years ago, she lost her baby brother to the Goblin King.

Toby looked no different than he had in his red and white striped PJs from The Night. He slept peacefully in the crib, beautifully and cruelly ageless since she'd last seen him when she was fifteen. It had been seventeen years since she'd laid eyes upon her baby brother-seventeen years and eight minutes since she'd lost him to Jareth.

The last nine and three quarters minutes had been spent arguing with aforementioned Goblin King-a careless wish, after such a long time without wishing at all (for wishing was far more powerful than longing, and Sarah had longed for so long to see Toby again), and it was all…nearly undone. A prophecy Jareth had never told her in an effort to preserve her innocence and her fairytales, combined with her violent wish to not set eyes upon him again after she had lost Toby-she had probably always been meant for this.

Jareth was destined to find a queen to mother a child who was lost-a woman to be the loving queen for Jareth and who was never to have become a mother in her own right. Such a pity, his own mother would croon to him after his father would leave to retrieve the newest wish-away. Although the curse had existed for time immemorial for his family, Jareth's mother had always wanted him to be her own more than he already was-and she had desperately wanted him to be the man to break it, to live the life he would have lived had he not been wished away.

Sarah wanted to have none of it-but she would remain in the Underground until either her acceptance of destiny or her death. Her wish had ensured that. Toby, thankfully never turned into a goblin, had been enchanted by her friends as well as Jareth to sleep until a mother came to the Underground for him. Sarah's role was to play that part of mother, and to her once-and-still baby brother no less. Toby was the child who was lost, and it didn't matter that she was the boy's sister.

Thirty two year old Sarah Williams-Blake was left alone for a time by her would-be husband-alone with the unwakeable child, in the silent throne room. It was not a time of festivity, tensions were high in the town surrounding the Castle-Beyond-the-Goblin-City. Goblins waited on baited breath for her decision.

What would Arnold think of her disappearances-would Jareth remove her completely from his life? So what if she'd been shaken by the news that she was barren, it was no cause to have broken a nearly twenty year vow…

 _I wish I could raise a child up from one even as big as Toby, I wish that I were Underground with Toby…Right now…_ had escaped her lips as twin trails of tears had fallen down her face. Arnold had left that afternoon-he had wanted children so badly, an army of toddlers with striking black hair and fired green eyes-and had been gone for hours when she had wished. For the first two years of their marriage Sarah had longed-because longing was not wishing, in the most technical sense-for a child. She had gone to the physician as a last resort; she was a healthy woman whose family had no history of fertility issues.

Jareth had appeared not in as dramatic a fashion as he had more than a decade before. _Precious, I have never been able to keep myself from answering your wishes. You haven't wished for something in such a long time…_ His face was in her mirror an instant before she sensed him in the room-the room she and Arnold had dubbed "the Baby's room," when they had bought the house a year before.

Toby, all the while during her introspection, did not stir, his face did not twitch even once in sleep. His stasis was perfect, awaiting a woman to look after him as Karen was never able to. The re-ordering of time had happened after Sarah's last wish after losing Toby, and Sarah's parents had forgotten they had a child-Toby's crib still had the stickers on it as Sarah's father and Karen prepared to try for a child, subconsciously asserting their will and wish to have one bless their marriage. Less than a year after Sarah had accidentally wished away their first child, she had a new baby brother named Trevor. Three more boys and one girl made their way into the Williams family-and after the last one had started pre-school, Karen had informed her husband and step-daughter that she just felt like she should have had another child.

Trevor hated Sarah, because she was, as their father teased, his "Other Mother," as Sarah tried to make up her mistakes against Toby by doing right by Trevor. The other kids weren't such immediate reminders of the Baby Who Was Lost. With Trevor, it had been the most motherly she'd ever been able to be-her loss of Toby had apparently cursed her to be without children herself. It was Cruel Magic, as Hoggle had termed it four hours ago when he'd tried to comfort Sarah through the mirror, before she'd wished. Cruel Magic which was the changes wrought upon a human as they spent a period of time in the Labyrinth.

Sarah bowed her head in sadness and shame over her past transgressions, preparing for a long evaluation of her failings.

And then, entering on the scene with a pitter-patter of tiny feet never grown bigger than a toddler's-a goblin entered.

It hiccupped gently-almost the hiccup of a child's cry-and pitter-pattered up to where Sarah knelt transfixed by her brother. A cherub-face, transfigured and transformed by goblin-hood, stared up at her as it tugged her sleeve. It's voice, rough like sandpaper, cut through the silent room.

"Wish Away Queen, dance Baby King awake-you the Wish Away Queen, dance Sleepy Babe awake!"

A small goblin peeked into the room from a grate in the wall-the cackling giggle of a three year old zinging through the air.

"Goblin King sings Wish Away Babe to sleep-sing about dancing out of dreamland, Gardiner and Knight sing too."

"Dance him wakey-wakey, Wish Away Queen!" voices started to pop out of the woodwork, faces grotesque and beautiful like babies newly born, and soon the room was filled with noise, a cacophony far and above any Sarah had ever heard in her mundane life Above.

Sarah had been unable to keep her somber expression as the noise began to take on a beat and rhythm, soothing her nerves and easing her hurts-and everything was dancing. She was mid-way through standing, half considering taking up Toby to at least try what they urged-

"Quiet!" Jareth's voice, graveled and beautiful-just because Sarah was married didn't mean she was dead-stoppered all sound. A hundred pairs of eyes watched as the Goblin King stalked up to the Wish Away Queen. Unaffected by the room full of stares, Jareth put a hand on the arm Sarah had been reaching toward Toby. His face was taught with sorrow-although Sarah knew not what for.

"Sarah, precious thing, do not lay a hand on him." She tried to recoil from his cruel words, but found she couldn't under his iron grip. His voice was tight, controlled, and she could almost hear a slight panic in it's tone.

"The moment you touch him, the change will begin to occur which should have begun years ago. Only by heeding what they," he swept the room with his eyes, focusing on the goblin at Sarah's side in particular, "have already mentioned, will you prevent him from becoming a goblin. I love his boy more than my own being, and if you turn him into a goblin then you shall have no safe harbor from me in my kingdom."

Sarah's mouth went dry-if she so much as laid a finger upon her brother she would really have lost, finally after so many years of assuming she had, _taking it for granted,_ that she had. If she touched him then she would have lost her husband Arnold, her family (Robert, Karen, Trevor, Trudy, Timothy, and Thomas), her home, and all of it for nothing.

"Sarah, you still have the ability to wring magic from the air-" Jareth began, no doubt in an effort to break the enchantment right now, before Sarah grabbed him forcibly by the hand he still had on her-and dragged him out of the room to at least the stairwell leading to what was probably still the Escher Room.

"I won't touch him." Jareth's face, already stretched with sadness, contorted in pain at her cruel words. They were both, she supposed, still very cruel and willful people. "I won't touch him if you don't love me." Jareth's face lit-she had guessed his professed love which she had rejected (in vain, as well since she had still lost her brother) was something true because it wasn't what it seemed at first glance.

"But I also won't touch him until I love you, and you will not be magicking that love into my head. You are going to have to earn it."

Jareth did not seem to know if he should be pleased or offended-and Sarah decided he had settled for placated.

"It would seem that I should invite you to dinner, in an effort to convince you to wake my boy."

* * *

"Jareth, why did they refer to me as the Wish Away Queen?" Sarah was picking over the dishes which had been laid out before her-it would seem that the only food the Underground shared in common with the Above was peaches. Jareth had indeed made an effort to select food which looked like what was eaten in the above, but whenever he had experienced a loss he had filled that space with peaches.

"The Wish Away Queen is the wife of the Goblin King. Her primary duty is to tend to the wished away during their stay here, as well as to tend to the Castle-Beyond's goblins. The goblins, other than the most basic guards, here are all the newest goblins. They know little of being goblins, and much about being young children." He paused for a beat, considering his words carefully it seemed.

"My mother, and her predecessors of course, used to dance with them to keep them entertained and in line. The Goblin King, when not haranguing Runners or running the kingdom in general, has a duty to provide music and song for his queen and subjects to make merry to."

Sarah nodded, trying to match it all up in her mind.

"And what of when there is no Wish Away Queen?"

"It is the sworn quest of the Goblin King to await one, but in the interim he must take on the duties of the other office as well. The curse is therefore dealt with faster than it would otherwise have been-for instance I had the chance to bond with Toby in a way I never would have had there been a Wish Away Queen."

"So you didn't know I was going to be the Wish Away Queen?" Sarah asked, quickly filling her mouth with what looked to be purple mashed-potatoes. It was a troubling enough question as it was, without having to elaborate for his Nibs.

"Of course not-although I began to take note of you when one of my goblins pointed out that you would never give up in your quest to save Toby. I was deeply in love with you by the time I took your hand to dance with you. Make no mistake that, although I knew my ultimate choice of queen was nearly out of my hands, I loved you then and that I love you now. The fact that you are here is icing on the…cake."

His bi-colored eyes glittered with good cheer as he recounted his tale.

He kindly didn't point out that she was here because she had had a weak moment, and she decided to return the kindness by not pointing out any flaws in his conclusions or assumptions.

* * *

 _Nobody knew-what kind of magic spell to use._ Jareth was singing, and the goblins were dancing, and the Wish Away Queen was tenderly lifting a swiftly wakening child out of an elaborate crib.

And then she and the Goblin King (as well as everyone else) were dancing.


End file.
